Full Moon Blues
by paranoia.pink
Summary: Remus Lupin broods and is a little crazy. Set right before PoA.


Disclaimer: Don't own, just mangle with and make OOC on a semi-regular basis. Don't make money off of it either.

I've locked myself in my cell, as usual. The lock is solid, and has barred me in safely many times, and the door is strong and enchanted. Unfortunately, there is nothing in here to occupy myself with, since werewolves have a tendency to break things. I would like to keep my few possessions in as good a condition as is possible, thanks. To make up for this interminable period of boredom and unalleviated pain, every afternoon before the full moon, I treat myself to a glass of wine and spend a few hours reading a book I wouldn't normally read. My penchant for Lockheart's delicious tripe is a dirty habit only unleashed once a month.

That is always the best part of the day, sadly. The day before today is always filled with aches and pains sometimes severe enough to stop me from working. My research means a lot to me, and I know I owe Snape a lot. Before his intervention (probably prompted by Dumbledore) I was huddled in misery for a full day and a half before and after. Now I at least have an extra day to work. I need to be finished before Yuletide; there's an entire syllabus to plan.

Pacing here, I have time to think that I don't normally have. Though my body is starting to twitch, I'm accustomed to it and can adjust accordingly. I live almost entirely in myself, I have realized recently. Usually people have an absent stream of subconscious thought running in the back of their minds, reviewing past events, planning for future ones, and interrupting daily life with the random and trivial. I don't have that. It is unfortunate; I suspect that I would be a great deal happier and more relaxed if my subconscious let loose more often.

It is also unfortunate that my window perfectly frames the moon every night. The reason I don't have a stream of consciousness is probably my lycanthropy. When your entire conscious mind takes a break once every month, there's probably not much subconscious left afterwards. Exhausted, perhaps? If there is anything running at the back of my mind, it is very simple: _full moon_. _full moon full moon fullmoonfullmoon._ I can just imagine the gibbering panic. The back of my mind could go on that way every night at the sight of that moon, or even just the window. I should get curtains, but what good would that do? I certainly don't have curtains on this window, just bars. Silver-plated ones, of course.

Reaching up, I run my hands up and down along the bars, almost touching them. The lack of curtains is probably why I got into Gryffindor. Or rather, the same reasons I got into Gryffindor are the same reasons I don't put curtains up in this window. Or the window in my room. I will face my fear, and let it pass through me. Except it doesn't of course. I am still afraid, and face it with dry clinical thoughts and wine and addictive literary snot. I am going to be a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and I have the mental tools and vocabulary to deal with my transformation clinically and analytically. The way I think about being a werewolf is probably the same way a doctor would think about their cancer. It is my way of coping, and generally fairly effective. I am capable of being, after all, a fairly decent, genial, and efficient man. That was the greatest compliment I ever received from McGonagall, on my last day at Hogwarts. The Shrieking Shack had a window without curtains too.

I am restless tonight. The moon is almost full, but I can't settle down and wait. Mediation usually helps, but I can't. My God, my God. If I were a Muggle I would pray. But I wasn't raised with the idea of God, so I don't know how. Wizards don't believe in God, because they have magic. We worship magic, kneel down at its altar and drip out our blood. Dark magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts are like two denominations. We sacrifice regularly to our god so we aren't left alone; our god is a thirsty god now.

I am losing coherence. It's usual. I've always been the logical of the four of us, the one with the know-how, the level-headedness. McGonagoll once said she could tell how late we had been up writing our Transfiguration essays because the later the hour, the greater the number of misspellings, dashes, interrupted sentences, unfinished or incomplete trains of thought. My essays, no matter how late I wrote them, never suffered from this problem. I feel as though I have been up too late. I am the only one left, really, and I should not be. Here, that is. Still alive. I should not be here, I should go to sleep. Because they are all dead. Sirius is dead to me. Or dead inside, or leeched. I wanted to visit him, and could hear a dog howling. I didn't go in.

The full moon is another god. Or maybe is the emissary of god. The moon is the channel through which I receive magic. I do not bleed when I transform. My skin rips but there is no blood. I am lost. There is no healing because there are no wounds. I have been doing this since I was so little, and sometimes I wonder why I am not mad. Why Sirius went over, when I am so obviously the easy target. The moon is a dark thing to me.

I do not think of them when I can stop myself. Sirius was like lightning. Peter was water, still and deep. James was soft woolen cloth. Lily was a green apple. Harry is the wood of my door. Sirius is now lightning in the water - lots of dead fish rising to the top. I am the moon. I do not know if am full or not. My God, I do not know if I am full.


End file.
